Stays that are commonly in the form of wound cables are used on sailboats for holding masts in fixed position. These stays, or guide wires as they are sometimes called, generally extend from the mast at various positions, most usually from an upper portion, to a point on the deck or hull of the boat. Commonly, these stays require frequent cleaning due to corrosion, rust and the collection of salt and dirt. This has been traditionally a manual operation requiring an individual to climb to the upper portions of the stays and hand clean them with handheld cleaning items such as cloths.
Several prior art patents have been directed to apparatus and devices for cleaning stays and these include U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,219,051; 1,407,674; 1,748,900; 3,116,811 and 3,791,330. These prior cleaning apparatus range from the simplistic device of the U.S. Pat. No. 3,791,330 patent to the rather complicated mechanism of U.S. Pat. No. 3,116,811. These prior art cleaning devices, however, have had problems either because the devices tend to wind the pulling cord or halyard around the stay, or the devices are mechanically complicated, unreliable and expensive to manufacture.